More Baths, Less Talking by Nick Hornby

I've been a devoted fan of Nick Hornby's work for quite a long time.  I remember opening a new bookstore and a friend lending me an early finished copy of High Fidelity and was immediately taken with his prose and his characters.  I knew Rob and Barry and Dick.  They were me and my friends and the dudes from the record store where I shopped and the bookstore where I worked. I, too, made passive/aggressive, not-nearly-so-subtle-as-I-thought-I-was mix tapes for girls I liked.  Hornby nailed it and lad lit was born!  (Cue sunbeams and trumpet fanfare and dropping testicles.) This begat About A Boy, as touching a novel as I'd read and still one of my faves.

Fortunately, Hornby had too much talent to stay too long in the lad lit ghetto and he produced How To Be Good and A Long Way Down and the lovely Juliet, Naked, as well as forays into non-fiction and YA books and screenplays.  Oddly, I didn't follow him into magazine writing because I thought the mag for which he writes, The Believer, all too hipper-than-thou for a dork like me.  With More Baths, Less Talking, I may have to change my thinking.

Sub-titled Notes From the Reading Life of a Celebrated Author Locked in Battle With Football, Family and Time Itself, Hornby does what I do with this blog: he writes about what he reads, with plenty of digressions about wife and kids, his outside interests, and his fame, along with gibes and japes at Believer editors and subscribers and a ton of hilarious self-deprecating remarks, albeit far more successfully and entertainingly than do I because he's a celebrated and talented author and I, well, I'm neither celebrated nor particularly talented nor am I an author but more of a lazy schlub with a badly-maintained blog and far too much unqualified opinion.  Go Steelers!  Hurray for Mrs. Next!

That said, Hornby is witty and insightful, his asides are clever and biting, and his reading choices are inspired.  A slim volume at a mere 135 pages, More Baths, Less Talking provided me with lots to consider, plenty to laugh about, and a desire to make this very blog as entertaining as his magazine pieces.  If only I can find the time and acquire the talent.

Memoirs Of An Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks

"Here is what I know:

My name is Budo.

I have been alive for five years.

Five years is a very long time for someone like me to be alive.

Max gave me my name.

Max is the only human person who can see me.

Max's parents call me an imaginary friend.

I love Max's teacher, Mrs. Gosk.

I do not like Max's other teacher, Mrs. Patterson.

I am not imaginary."

So begins Memoirs Of An Imaginary Friend, Matthew Dicks' beguiling third novel and it's one hell of a set-up.  What the set-up doesn't mention is that Max appears to be somewhere on the autism spectrum. He is highly functioning but lacks social skills and is unable to break with routine causing him to get "stuck" as Budo most aptly puts it.  

Though quite different in tone, Memoirs has much of the same charm as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and not simply because of the malady both children suffer.  The authors know how to keep the serious aspects light enough while moving an imaginative story forward.  

Budo loves Max and is his (almost) constant companion but he has learned that, as imaginary friends go, he's a bit different.  Because Budo is as Max "has imagined him" and because Max is a bright boy, aspects of Budo's life are more developed than many of the other imaginary friends Budo has encountered, most of whom sleep when their friends sleep and are practically forgotten when the human friend is off at school.  Budo doesn't need to sleep and often wanders off to explore the outside world at night.  He regards two convenience store employees who work the graveyard shift as his friends even though they can't see him.  He has become pals with another imaginary friend, a girl named Graham, as well as other "imaginaries" (my quotation marks, not the authors') who are nothing more than popsicle sticks or a blob on a wall.  Budo understands their limitations.

Aside from his devotion to Max, Budo is keenly aware and deathly afraid of his inevitable fate--when his human friend will no longer need an imaginary friend.  Budo sees this happen repeatedly and it causes him considerable existential angst so he endeavors to make himself essential to Max in order to live forever.  Heady stuff for an imaginary friend, don't you think?  This is where Dicks shines and the book succeeds.  Throughout the book, I was touched by Budo's obvious love for his friend and his own self-awareness.  Dicks can be wildly funny one moment and achingly tender the next. 

Less successful, though still quite compelling, is the story of Max's disappearance and kidnapping which propels the bulk of the book.  Though I found this arc just a bit too tidy, it wasn't enough to cause me not to enjoy the novel a great deal.  While Max is tucked away in a basement room that looks exactly like his own by a teacher gone rogue, Budo is able to see how Max's absence tears at his parents, his teacher, Mrs. Gosk, and causes him to question his own existence.  Even though Max seems content with his routine, is Budo's desire to save Max merely self-preservation or is it the right thing to do? 

This book just came out this week.  Please go to your nearest indie bookseller or library and treat yourself.

Of Anniversaries, Longshots, and Frank Deford

Before I give Mr. Deford's new memoir, Over Time, the once-over, I would like to wish myself a happy anniversary as it was six years ago this week that this blog was hatched.  It has grown some, the look has changed a bit but it is still essentially the same: my thoughts on what I read, like it or lump it.  I remain plagued by my procrastinating, something I still can't explain since I'm always much happier once I have written (perhaps a therapist would be of help here) and, of course, my longwindedness and inability to punctuate correctly.   Still, my belief in the book and my admiration for those who write them, publish them, and read them has never wavered.  If you've spent any time here on this site, read a book because of what I've written, avoided one because of same, or just guffawed a bit, I appreciate it immensely.  There are lots of places to go for book info featuring writers far more accomplished than your ol' pal, Reed Next.  That said, I do hope you'll stay with me.  Eventually, I might even get it write right.

I was terribly happy to see The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce's delightful debut, made the longlist for the Man Booker prize.  Likely a longshot but you never know with awards and with the Britons.  Mrs. Next is enjoying the book very much though Mrs. Next reads quite slowly so if I promised to lend you my copy, perhaps you may wish to hold yourself over with another book or purchase it yourself.  Her schoolmarming is about to begin for the year and that might mean she won't finish Harold until the holiday break in December.

Now, as for Frank Deford, let me just say this book was a joy.  I have long been a fan of his writing and his NPR commentaries.  His tenure has spanned a couple of generations of sportswriters and he has watched as sports became less about sport and more about big business. 

One of the things I have always admired about Deford is his honesty.  He knows college football is a shameless racket, that Americans will never embrace soccer as does the rest of the world, that pro tennis is dead.  He'll tell you so in an elegant but straightforward manner, two things lacking in both sports and sportswriting these days.  

Best of all, Deford is a gunslinger.  His vocabulary, his style, his turns of phrase always make me smile and appreciate how easy he makes it look and how hard it must be to write.  Even better, if you like his NPR commentaries, you will read this book and be able to hear his voice, that cadence, and that wink.  

To that end, I give you a graph from chapter two as a tiny taste of what I'm talking about:

"I have always believed that, ideally, your memoirs should be filled with anecdotes about other, more attractive people so that you might improve on the necessarily duller parts of the narrative, i.e., yourself.  David Niven, for example, wrote memoir after memoir, because he knew all the stylish folk in the world, and wherever they were together, in the Hamptons or Gstaad or on yachts in the Mediterranean, they all had big names and they absolutely adored lunches, so they ate and drank long, languid midday repasts and threw off priceless bons mots, one after the other, for Mr. Niven to dress up his own memoirs with.  Alas, although it was not my life's intention at the time when I chanced to become a sportswriter, I have thereafter mostly remained a sportswriter; and I'm afraid athletes don't traffic in bons mots, whether or not I am in their presence with a notepad."

Mmmm.  Scrumptious. Dooooo go on.

Of Frog Hospitals, Cocktail Waitresses and the Ramones

A number of things to mention:

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce has made the Man Booker Prize long list.  This will help it acquire the readership I think it deserves and my hopes are high it will make the short list, to be announced in September.  Mrs. Next is reading it now and is enjoying Harold's exploits immensely.  Go buy a copy.

Recently re-read Ramones: An American Band by Jim Bessman, which I'm happy to see is still in print since it came out in 1993 and thus published well before the deaths of Joey, Dee Dee, and Johnny.  Bessman provides a capable chronicle of the band though Peter Guralnick he ain't.  Then again, they weren't the type of band or men who needed a bio that went into the detail that Guralnick did.  He writes in a simple, straightforward manner much like the music of the Ramones.  Best of all, reading it made me re-visit my records.  1-2-3-4!! indeed.

I'm currently reading Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore and I'm perplexed much in the same way I am about Paul Harding's Tinkers: why aren't these books lighting me up?  Both contain captivating stories and sparkling prose but they seem to lack drive.  Perhaps this is by design but I keep waiting for both to really grab me and with only 40 pages left in Moore's book, I'm left wanting.  (I haven't even finished Tinkers and I started that two months ago.)  Will their respective endings be what I'm after or are my expectations wrong?  I'll find out soon enough.

Went to a re-sale shop yesterday where I always find good books on the cheap.  Though pickings were a bit slim, I walked out with an old but intriguing short story collection from 1951, Love In the Time of Cholera, which I'm ashamed to say I've never read, a copy of Russo's brilliant Empire Falls, which I intend to give to a new, young friend, and Illusions by Richard Bach.  Many will poo-poo the Bach book but I'm a fervent fan and re-read it most every summer.  Since I often lend it out or give it away, I found myself without a copy recently so luck was on my side.  Donald Shimoda is a remarkable character and even though Bach is dismissed as mawkish, I just love this story.  Poo-poo all you wish.  Illusions is to me a pleasure for which I feel no guilt.

Once again, I've been the recipient of much book love, this time from my homie, 'Chele, who sent a care package from Random House, et. al.  which contains: 

• Buddy: How A Rooster Made Me a Family Man by Brian McGory,  
• Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead about which I'm hearing good buzz, 
• Robin Shulman's Eat the City, which looks absolutely fascinating,  
• The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu, about which I know nothing so I'm trusting 'Chele, and
• Giving Up the Ghost by Eric Nuzum.  The caveat here is that it was blurbed by the insufferable Chuck Klosterman who I think is so overrated, his popularity defies all logic, and by Rob Sheffield, whose rock writing credentials are solid but who grossly disappointed me with Talking to Girls About Duran Duran.  It should have been brilliant.  It wasn't.

Most exciting is The Cocktail Waitress, the "lost, final novel" by James M. Cain.  I'm attempting to keep my expectations low since, if it's so good, one wonders why it wasn't found sooner.  Still, if it's half as good as his classic noir tales, it might be a worthy though late addition to his small but influential body of work.

Office Girl by Joe Meno

My college professors often told me and my fellow communications majors how attractive we would be in the job market we were about to enter.  Apparently, employers really didn't wish to hire potential employees who had swallowed a steady diet of courses from the business college but were looking for well-read, well-rounded liberal arts-types who could then be taught what was necessary to succeed in business.  Sounded great to those of us who had spent our undergrad years learning how to speak publicly, argue scientifically, and theorize rhetorically.  Good times were near.

When we matriculated and graduated, we found out the business world really didn't want that at all so we became bartenders and servers and proto-baristas, before that was a common word or job even, and learned we didn't have to give up our garage bands after all.  Young, poor, over-educated and underemployed--that was us.  Worse than that, our birth years placed us squarely in Generation X and we were dubbed 'slackers', a sobriquet that we embraced and rejected, simultaneously, while sporting flannel shirts in mosh pits and making Soundgarden successful.  Ultimately we came around to the idea that without the safety net of college, we had paid too much for school to merely man the copiers at Kinko's.  Quelle dommage! The characters in Joe Meno's new novel find themselves at similar loose ends.

Office Girl, (or Bohemians or Young People on Bicycles Doing Troubling Things) is set during the Chicago blizzard of 1999 and Meno uses this as a metaphor for a number of things: the hard slog toward adulthood, the cold, cruel world out there, the need to dig oneself out, to find oneself under the snow drifts and emerge as someone different.  Perhaps there are more but you can read it for yourself and tell me about it later. 

Jack and Odile want to be artists and fancy themselves as such but they can't seem to commit to the work though they certainly embrace what they perceive as the lifestyle.  They meet at a crappy call-center job.  She is a few credits shy of her BFA, promiscuous and flighty but she is such a winsome character, that like Jack, you can forgive her almost anything.  (Some readers will disagree with me and simply find her to be a giant pain in the ass and will shout "Curse you, Reed Next! You have steered me wrong!"  If so, my apologies but come back soon.  I'm likely to post again by August.  Maybe.)  Jack's youthful marriage has just ended in divorce.  He needs to get on with himself and tries, halfheartedly, but can't quite summon the necessary backbone.  Instead, he stays in Odile's orbit and hopes.  

Regular readers of Reed Next know how much I admire Meno's work.  I think he has a deep sense of compassion for his characters and his ability to portray buoyant happiness alongside aching sadness make me respect him more with each novel. He succeeds here, especially with Odile.  Back in the day, I knew Odile. I chased Odile.  I dated Odile.  I slept with her, too. Odile made me crazy in every sense but you just couldn't live with Odile because Odile couldn't live with herself.  She had one more thing she had to do, one more class to take, one more bad boyfriend and then she could be happy.  She never could as long as I knew her and, much like Jack, that made me sad and sorry for something I thought might be.  Joe Meno manages to capture her essence perfectly if a bit painfully for me as the reader. 
 
Office Girl lacks the emotional heft of Hairstyles of the Damned and the black humor of The Boy Detective Fails but I believe it is lighter by design and intent.  Where this could be just a hapless, tortured slacker novel, a Coupland throwback, in Meno's savvy hands, it isn't.  It is charming and engaging, infuriating and doomed.  It is a love story that never gets the love part of the relationship right.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

There are times when doing the right thing comes as a complete surprise especially when doing so is completely out of character.  So it is with Harold Fry, a man who has been a bystander of his own life.  When we meet him in Rachel Joyce's marvelous debut novel, he is retired from his sales job at a brewery, estranged from his wife, Maureen, absent in the life of his grown son, David, without friends or interests or hobbies.  Harold just is.  But he isn't really.  Even in retirement, Harold is an empty suit.  

One morning, as he sits at the breakfast table "freshly shaven, clean shirt and tie", he receives a letter from his old colleague from the brewery, Queenie Hennessy, informing him, quite concisely, that she is dying of cancer and nothing can be done.  Despite not being in touch with each other for twenty years, she thought he'd like to know.  Harold is shaken and stirred. As he walks to the nearby letter box to post a characteristically unsentimental reply, something changes in Harold.  He passes another letter box and then another.  Then a chance conversation with a counter girl at a convenience store puts everything into focus for Harold: if he keeps walking, he is certain Queenie will live. If he treks the 600 and some miles from Kingsbridge to Berwick-Upon-Tweed, he can save Queenie.  Unprepared, out of shape, wearing boat shoes and a suit, with little money and no cell phone, off he goes. By the journey of Harold Fry, Queenie Hennessy will live.

As he makes his way, Harold opens himself up to the spirit of the journey.  He will stick to the main roads despite knowing there are quicker ways to cover more miles.   He will befriend strangers and listen to their life stories.  He will accept help, grudgingly at first.  By accident, Harold's quest even becomes newsworthy and soon others join him on the road, fervent in their belief in Harold's belief, all walking to save Queenie though many with agendas of their own.  Harold, never one to rock the boat, suffers but presses on.

As for summarizing, I will leave it at that.  I have left you in a good place and there is much more to Harold's story. I do encourage you to read this work for yourself which will hit stores on July 24.  That said, I must add that I cried throughout the book for Harold, for Maureen, for David, and for Queenie.  Joyce's prose is spare and tight and I admire the economy with which she has told this tale.  There is a portion of the book that takes on some Forrest Gumpiness but that is expected and easily forgiven because it is a novel that is generous and deeply satisfying.  While a good man is hard to find, look no further than Harold Fry.

The Guttenberg Bible by Steve Guttenberg

I have always been fascinated by the movie DINER, Barry Levinson’s 1982 directorial debut.  Over the past 30 years, I’ve watched it perhaps a hundred times.  No exaggeration.  The first time I heard the term ‘sleeper’ used, it was to describe this film.  In high school, I tried to emulate the characters by spending long nights in a Perkins Pancake House (there were no actual diners in my tiny western Pennsylvania town) smoking cigs, eating french fries with gravy and drinking coffee while wrestling with what my friends and I considered issues big and small.  On prom night, I couldn’t wait to get rid of my date so I could meet the guys at the DINER, as we had come to refer to Perkins.  I know the script almost from memory.  I even bought the screenplay and used to have college roomies prompt me with a line so I could recite the next, a practice I look back on and see just how annoying that must have been.  

I was hooked on the great ensemble cast (Steve Guttenberg, Mickey Rourke, when he was beautiful, Paul Reiser, Daniel Stern, Tim Daly, before he got his teeth fixed, Kevin Bacon, Ellen Barkin) who were all at the beginnings of their careers.  I never would have guessed Bacon would become the biggest star of them all.  I loved the dialogue that seemed authentic because it was so idiosyncratic ("Y'know what word I'm not comfortable with? Gesture”), the way they talked over each other, how they talked about everything while talking about nothing.  I enjoyed the story (the football quiz, the whole left side of the menu, the sandwich scene) for being funny and honest.  It was what I hoped my relationships with my friends would be like; that there would be in these relationships camaraderie, fellowship, banter, and guys who had your back.  
Perhaps my senses have been dulled a bit by reading Tommy James’ memoir last month but when I saw that Steve Guttenberg had written a memoir, I had to read it in hopes there would be some killer new info on DINER.  Did I get my DINER scoop?  Not as much as I had hoped but I kept reading anyway.   

 
Overall, The Guttenberg Bible is a pretty standard celeb book (and give the title a break.  What else are you going to call it when your last name is Guttenberg?).  He talks about how he really didn't have any idea what he was doing in Hollywood or even how to become an actor.  He had a bad last name, bad hair, and no experience so he hustled like hell and for a while he became a guy who could play the likable characters that many movies during the 80's seemed to need.  

What I had forgotten about Guttenberg was the string of mainstream hits he had:  Something for Joey (a required weeper for all 6th grade boys in my day), all those Police Academy movies (mostly bad and of their time but big commercial hits), Cocoon, Three Men and a Baby.  Hell, this guy started off in The Boys From Brazil acting alongside Gregory Peck, James Mason and Olivier! Now, could he pull off Chekhov or even be a supervillain in the next Spiderman movie?  Probably not but that's okay with me.  Ultimately, he seems like the nice guy he tended to play; a kid from Massapequa, Long Island who made it big for a while. 

Doomed With Joy

It's been over a month since Lewis Nordan passed away.  In that time, I've reread Wolf Whistle, his most acclaimed novel, and some of the shorter works, and I've thought a great deal about what his work has meant to me.  

When I was a boy bookseller, Nordan's work hit me like a train, with its outlandish heroes and villains, the decidedly oddball humor, the deep love his characters seemed to have for one another, and his descriptions of the Mississippi swamps, a symbol of both fecundity and decay, near the mythical town of Arrow Catcher, Mississippi.  My introduction to his work was an advance copy of The Sharpshooter Blues.  After devouring it and all the other titles the store had on hand, I was on the Nordan bus (likely, a short bus) for life.

Handselling it to anyone and everyone was a pleasure.  Because of the outright wackiness of the characters, I could tell customers, "If you're only going to read one book this year about a one-armed llama farmer, make it Lightning Song.  You must meet Swami Don" or "Tired of all those other books with hydrocephalic lead characters?  You gotta read Sharpshooter Blues" or even "Ever go chicken fishing?  Sugar Mecklin can teach you how".  It was as though I was introducing them to people they simply had to meet and I knew once they'd met Swami Don or Hydro or Sugar, they'd be hooked. Eventually, doing so caught the eye of Nordan's publisher, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.  

One afternoon, I found a message asking me to call the head of marketing, Ina Stern.  "Uh oh." I thought.  "Have I done something wrong?"  When I got through to her, I was surprised to find she just wanted to thank me for handselling so many copies in the store and then we proceeded to talk about Lewis Nordan, whom she called Buddy, as did everyone who actually knew him, for almost an hour.  I thought, "This is so great!  The publisher wanted to THANK me.  And I'm on the clock!"  That conversation began a long friendship with Ina, Craig Popelars (who wrote a lovely memorial for the author here: http://goo.gl/pOBYo) and others at Algonquin, a house that has managed to publish more hits over the last 15 years than any other house its size and whose list rivals any of the Big Six.  When I read of Nordan's death, the first thing I did was fire off condolences to Ina and Craig.  

Nordan's novels, short stories and his memoir aren't for everyone.  Some find it just a bit too much and if that's what you come away with, fine, but for me there is something more.  Amidst all the strange and wonderful characters, there is a decided humanity and great depth of feeling.  For all their considerable peccadilloes, the citizens of Arrow Catcher really are just plain folks.  They live and love and feel and fret.  They make bad decisions and have regrets but they seem to want what we all want: to be part of a community, to have friendships, to love and to be loved.  It doesn't matter if you're a hydrocephalic man-child, a member of the all-girl football team, or the Prince of Darkness (he's the local mortician), there is love to be had and therefore, there is reason to live.  Somehow, his characters always manage to find a way to tell the people they love just how much they love them; we should all be so lucky.  As the narrator says in one story, "...I was my father's child and the child of this strange southern geography.  I was beautiful, and also wise and sad and somehow doomed with joy".   To me, this single sentence might encapsulate and epitomize Nordan's entire body of work. 

I never got to meet Mr. Nordan.  He never toured near my store.  He never made the trip to BookExpo.  He lived and taught in my beloved Pittsburgh.  He published only one more book, his memoir, Boy With Loaded Gun.  He got sick and stayed sick for an awfully long time, before he passed in April.  I never got to call him Buddy but I feel as though I have lost someone sort of close to me and, with him, all those folks in Arrow Catcher.  Still, I'll take the liberty.  Thanks for everything, Buddy.

Of Bookmarks, Brothers, and BAD (with an Office Girl and a Swamp thrown in for giggles)

I got my Albatros bookmarks the other day and I'm digging using them.  It really may be a better bookmark, simple, elegant, and clever.  I would prefer they were re-usable.  We live in the golden age of adhesives so I can only guess this is a simple adjustment to make.  

Karen Russell won the New York Public Library Young Lions award for Swamplandia!  The award is for American authors under the age of 35 who show promise.  She was a finalist for her previous collection St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.  As if I haven't pimped her enough on this blog, I strongly encourage you to read her work.  

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt is out in paperback and continues to rack up awards, especially in his native Canada.  The new cover isn't nearly as enthralling as the original and whoever decided there was need to change it should be taken out and horsewhipped.  However it's what's between the covers that counts. 

Joe Meno's upcoming Office Girl is a winner.  I'll post more about it closer to its July pub date but be on the lookout for this one from those cool cats at Akashic Books.

Paul Fussell passed away yesterday at the age of 88.  A cultural critic with a sharp eye and an acid tongue, his book BAD or the Dumbing of America had a strong grip on me when I read it 20 years ago. I'm re-reading it now and find he is still dead on the money.  I can only imagine what he must have thought about the ubiquity of the Internet and cell phones, reality TV and the demise of empathy, honor and shame in American culture today.  Was he ahead of his time or have we as a society just gotten worse? 

Me, The Mob, And The Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James and the Shondells

Admit it.  You can name three or four Tommy James tunes off the top of your head.  How about these: Crimson and Clover, Crystal Blue Persuasion and I Think We're Alone Now.  All great pop songs. All number one records.  All memorable.  All embedded in our ears.  And that's without mentioning Mony, Mony, Hanky Panky, Draggin' the Line or a mess of other singles that charted high.

 

Let me say, right off the bat, I'm not some secret Tommy James freak who has been waiting all my life for this memoir.  In fact, I doubt only the true Tommy James freak, of which there must be some somewhere, have been waiting all their lives for this memoir.  Still, when I saw this was being published, it made me think about Tommy James and the Shondells and their place in the scheme of rock 'n' roll.  What was it like for a lightweight hitmaker like Tommy James to hit it big while the Beatles, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and other more influential musicians were at the height of their popularity and creative output?  Hoping for an answer to that question made me want to read this memoir. 

So there's the "Me" and the "Music" of the title.  What of "the Mob"?  Ah, yes, the story of Roulette Records, the baby of Morris Levy, a notorious label chief who was so mobbed-up, he gave his bodyguards their own labels.  A guy so cutthroat, he actually cut throats.  Thing is, he knew a hit when he heard it.  Tommy James came along after a long dry spell for Roulette so Levy made him a star.  Along the way, Levy invented the cut-out and the K-Tel label as a way to double dip from his own publishing empire.  Shrewd, mean and loyal.  That was Morris Levy. 

No great revelations here, of course: kid comes from nothing, makes it big, mobster screws him out of millions, too much booze, too many pills, James finds Jesus (I do wish Jesus would talk to James about his hair!  He sports a rather frightening coif these days), record label folds like a house of cards, prison, cancer, oldies circuit.  Sounding like every cliche imaginable, Me, The Mob, and The Music is a highly readable story that I couldn't put down.  Honest.

Getting Graphic

Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Here we have two examples of successful storytelling within the same medium, one that is usually derided as being "kid stuff" or low-brow.  Both pack a punch but in very different ways.

Alex Ross creates comic art like you've never seen. While you've seen images of Batman and Superman a million times during your life, often not even seeking them out, when you come across Ross' work and give it just a moment or two to seep in, it will stop you in your tracks.

Mythology provides the reader a look inside the gorgeous artwork and gives us a sense of Ross' process which ultimately gives a greater sense of the man.  Owing a debt to the great comic artists that came before him, especially Neal Adams, Ross has elevated the art form.  His process uses live models and, most surprising to me, after drawing in pencil, he paints everything.  Surprising in that most comic artists start with pencil, then hand off to an inker and then hand off to another person, a colorist, to finish things up. His use of light is one of the especially effective and distinguishing characteristics of his work.  The realism is so intense, it's almost as if Norman Rockwell was hired to draw Superman or Captain Marvel. 

Here's a video showing Ross at work:

 

Satrapi's Persepolis is a very different book though every bit as wonderful.  Unlike Ross, Satrapi uses black and white art to tell her story of growing up in Iran before and during the Islamic Revolution that ousted the Shah and installed the theocratic government of the Ayatollah Khomeini.  It is young girl's story of feeling powerless in a world that turned the world upside down. 

The honesty with which Satrapi writes is remarkable.  To show us how she could be a bratty, know-it-all adolescent, to share with us her parents real tears and fears, to shed light on the sizable population that were not Islamic radicals gives us real insight into the human issues.  All these years later, I think we assume everyone in Iran was in favor of the regime change and that now everyone is a fundamentalist and has been since the late '70's.  In Persepolis, Satrapi shows us otherwise and I am most grateful for her moving, funny, sad story.

It's World Book Night!

Today is a very special day in the world of books and reading.  It is the inaugural World Book Night here in the U.S. and I am so very proud to be a part of it.

The idea is to get books into the hands of people who don’t read much but would like to read more. Thirty different, acclaimed books were carefully chosen and tens of thousands of people across the country are giving these books away today, myself included. I was lucky enough to give away a favorite of mine, Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.  I read the book prior to starting this blog so there's no review handy but I will say it's an absolutely marvelous story, beautifully written, about faith, family, and personal conviction.  Leif Enger's prose is gorgeous and breathtaking and if you trust me at all, do yourself a giant favor and pick up a copy of this book.

World Book Night began last year in the UK and this is the first year the U.S. has been involved. Other countries will follow suit and the aim is to give away one million books in a single day across the world.

Publishers, printers, and wholesalers made these special paperback editions available for free and authors and agents waived their royalties.  Indie bookstores, chains, wholesalers, and libraries nationwide are on-board as are organizations like the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association. Even UPS helped out by shipping these thousands of books for free.

As a World Book Night giver, I received twenty copies and gave them away today at work and in my neighborhood.  As I handed them out, I congratulated the recipients for being part of something much bigger and hoped they will love Peace Like A River as much as I do.  Now it's out of my hands and in theirs.

If you'd like to learn more, please go to www.worldbooknight.org and mark your calendars for next April 23.  

Many thanks to Leif Enger and to Carl Lennertz, el queso grande of WBN, for allowing me to play my tiny part.   Well done, Carlo.  You did it!

Everybody Says Hello by Michael Kun

Occasionally, there are characters in books that I like so much or find so compelling, I wish the author would revisit them.  However, even for the authors who created the character from their own minds, hearts and experience, that is often too tall an order, the result unsatisfying or forced.  Updike was successful with Rabbit Angstrom as was Roddy Doyle with Paula Spencer.  I'm happy to say Michael Kun succeeds in catching us up with Sid Straw in his latest novel, Everybody Says Hello.  

We were first introduced to him almost ten years ago in The Locklear Letters and now we are afforded the opportunity to see how he has fared since.  This time, we meet up with Sid as he's heading from his beloved Baltimore and a broken relationship to start over on the West Coast in a new position at a computer company.  

Like its predecessor, Everybody Says Hello is an epistolary novel and Sid is a letter-writing dynamo.  (I especially loved the postcards he sends his young nephew that draw his sisters' ire.)  Unlike most epistolary novels, there is no correspondence; every letter is 'From the Desk of Sid Straw' and with every letter, nothing goes as planned. In his well-meaning zeal, each letter he writes makes a little mess turn into a bigger one and from there, well, the police are called, disputes arise with questionable hotel managers and his new life suddenly begins to unravel before it starts. 
 

Despite the fact that his biggest problem is that he just can't get out of his own way, Sid is a likable, kindhearted guy.  He is a pleaser, a romantic, and something of a nebbish.  If Leo Durocher's maxim was correct, Sid Straw, the epitome of 'nice guys', not only finishes last but he's also been guilted into sweeping up the joint, doing the dishes and cleaning the ashtrays.   Among his writing talents, Kun makes you feel like you know Sid.  He's your nutty uncle or your old roommate and he drives you a little crazy but he means well and he's always been SO good to you and in a pinch, he'd do anything for you.  Other writers might have foregone that sense of humanity for laughs but Kun succeeds in telling all sides of Sid's exploits in a clean, concise way without sacrificing anything.  Best of all, Michael Kun is damned funny; in my mind, he's one of the funniest novelists writing today.  


Though letter-writing has gone the way of the dodo,sadly, I would be curious to see how Sid is doing ten years from now.  Michael Kun, are you listening?

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Before Passover passes me by, here's the perfect title to accompany all that matzah you might be eating.  


People of the Book is a remarkable novel whose main character is a book, the celebrated Sarajevo Haggadah.  The haggadah is read during the Passover seder that commemorates the exodus of the enslaved Jews in Egypt.  Think Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments. You know, "Let My People Go!", parting of the Red Sea, killing of the firstborn, Yul Brynner as Pharoah, the whole bit.  Throw in some songs, some wine and a reminder what a tremendous disappointment I was to my parents and it's like you're at the table with us. 

A magnificently and uncharacteristically illustrated version, the Sarajevo Haggadah is believed to have been created in Spain in the 1400's.  At some point in the 16th century, it turned up in Italy and then at the very end of the 1800s, it was sold to the National Museum of Sarajevo.  During World War II and the long, ugly Bosnian wars, the Haggadah was hidden and kept safe, in one instance by the museum director, himself a Muslim.  You can read Brooks' fascinating New Yorker piece about the Haggadah and the museum director here: http://goo.gl/74ykP

In broad strokes, those are the facts.  What Brooks does then is piece together a dazzling work of fiction by imagining who wrote it, who commissioned it, who illustrated it, and who kept it safe in a longer narrative broken up by period pieces and some contemporary conspiracy.  

Having never read her before, I can say Brooks is a gifted writer, given to clean prose, believable dialogue and a tremendous nose for research.  There are some contrivances along the way but they don't take away from this ambitious and satisfying book.  

Happy Passover.

Build A Better Bookmark...

...and the world will beat a path to your bookshelves?  

We shall see if this happens but I'm so intrigued by the Albatros bookmark.  Let's be honest.  I've nothing against the bookmark as it exists. It is a perfectly functional piece of equipment that has served me well with thousands of books.  I think what I like about the Albatros is the thought that went into the design, making the bookmark practically sexy (Yes, I used 'sexy' and 'bookmark' in the same sentence.  Who woulda thought?).  As well, the idea of innovation as regards the bookmark is something I would have never pondered.  Big ups to its creator, Oscar Lhermitte. 

After watching this video, see if you're not as excited about this as I am:

http://www.indiegogo.com/Albatros-bookmarks-1

The Albatros bookmark will hit the market in a month or so and I am anxious to try mine out. 

Townie by Andre Dubus III

Dubus' memoir of growing up poor and angry in Massachusetts is a puzzle.  At page 65, I was ready to put it down but I pressed on.  Now having finished Townie, I'm not certain why I did so.  I found it repetitive to the point of pain and the author only somewhat redeemed.  

Dubus III, the son of author Andre Dubus, grew up in depressed former mill towns outside Boston in the 70's.  His parents divorced and he and his sibs mostly fended for themselves while his mother worked, barely making ends meet.  Dubus Pere, was only a few miles away, teaching at a small college, writing, running, and alternately chasing co-eds and marrying them.  He had a rather vaunted presence in the life of his family but was mostly absent, emotionally and financially.  Only later in life do they become better acquainted though as Dubus III recalls, more like drinking buddies than father and son.

For the first third of the book, Dubus spends his time alternating between getting his ass kicked by legions of neighborhood toughs and hating himself for being a coward.  After his sister is raped at knifepoint, he vows never to be a weakling again.  He starts weight training and boxing and attends college and then spends the next third of the book getting into fights with legions of neighborhood toughs but it does little to assuage his rage that has grown out of poverty, daddy issues and a naivete bordering on idiocy (at one point in his early 20s, he describes never having heard of nearby Harvard.  What?)

Finally, he finds--TA DA!--writing! This leads him to growing up some (not enough for me, at least as he portrays himself) and finding ways to put his rage where it belongs.  There are some touching moments with his father but mostly, his family, friends and fellow bar fighters come across as two-dimensional.  As much as I read about his kid brother, Jeb, I never felt like he was a real person and the same can be said of his mother, his best friend, and even his wife.  

There is also a sense of repetition that was maddening.  How many times do we need to hear the nearby rivers smell bad, the local bars are full of smokers exhalations, and of Clay Whelan, the neighbor kid who beat his ass early in the book?  Per Dubus, all too many.  

Finally, here is a recent interview with Dubus and the great Richard Russo about memoir writing (or 'memwah' according to Dubus) from the Daily Beast:


http://goo.gl/JwSaL

Howard Jones asked the musical question...

...What Is Love? and since it's Valentine's Day, I thought I'd offer a few suggestions for some great love stories.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

Rob loves Laura, no doubt, but unless he grows up, he'll never really know the depths of love.  Hornby hits a homer here. 

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

I've said it a million times but I think this is the most romantic book, perhaps ever, and it made me want to hug Mrs. Next.  Ignore the movie (even though I find it most difficult to ignore actress Rachel McAdams--yowza!) and read this stunning debut novel. 

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

One of my absolute favorites of the last twenty years, I can't say enough about Krauss or this challenging read but the payoff is gigantic.  There is great love, loss, and pain in these characters.  Be patient and you will be amply rewarded. 

Now go love a book.

Of Office Girls, Honey Badgers and How To Be Black

There are several new books about which you should be aware.  Most have just published and one is forthcoming but they are all likely to be of interest to 'reeders' of this blog.  And so:

Out now

How To Be Black by Baratunde Thurston

http://www.baratunde.com/

Several years ago, while I was promoting a book entitled Your Negro Tour Guide, I had the good fortune to meet Baratunde, at the time a self-published author, stand-up comic and political blogger.  He continues to blog and perform stand-up but he has gotten bigger, especially since becoming digital director of The Onion and making himself a presence on Twitter, on campuses, on TV and all over the Web.  Imagine how thrilled I was to hear him interviewed on Fresh Air this week to discuss How To Be Black from bigfamouspublisher, Harper Collins.   

(Listen here: http://goo.gl/ILnMu)

His history is an amazing amalgam of culture clashes--raised in DC during the heyday of crack by a crunchy, pan-Afrikan mother, his father killed in a drug deal, Baratunde attended the tony Sidwell Friends school and later Harvard.  Needless to say, he is smart and insightful and, best of all, funny.  I so look forward to reading the book in its entirety.  The author photo alone is worth the price of the book.  

Honey Badger Don't Care: Randall's Guide to Crazy, Nastyass Animals

YouTube phenom Randall has had millions of hits since last spring with the hilarious Honey Badger video.  Now comes the inevitable, cross-platform book. Dangerous waters here since how is a video with narration going to succeed as a book? 

Voice, baby.  That distinctive Randall voice.  You can almost hear the lisping, dramatic Randall describing the assemblage of strange creatures through words and color photos.  It's funny and informative and a great gift for the legion of Honey Badger devotees.  (Thanks to the good folks at NetGalley and publisher Andrews McMeel for online access to the book)

The Coincidence Agent by Sam Leith

From the sound of the summary, this could be a Jasper Fforde-like romp and I am all for Jasper Fforde-like romps.  We need all the Jasper Fforde-like romps we can get these days.  So let's romp, Fforde-like or otherwise.  

http://www.akashicbooks.com/officegirl.htm

Coming Soon: 

I love Joe Meno and you should, too.  He writes with an honesty and a sadness I find remarkable.  Office Girl won't be out until this summer but check out his other work in the meantime, especially The Boy Detective Fails.  The good folks at Akashic Books will be glad to help you out.